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| 2006/3/23-25 [Reference/Tax] UID:42393 Activity:high |
3/23 Chinese levies taxes on non-environmentally-friendly products:
http://tinyurl.com/k3922 (NY times)
I can't wait to see what would happens if USA does the same thing.
and... if Bush is serious about remove dependency on foreign oil,
he should levy taxes on gasoline :p
\_ bush would never raise taxes. well, except on the poor.
\_ I think any commodity tax is innately a regressive tax, and
therefore "on the poor".
\_ Does he also call them fees?
\_ are you nuts? any idea how much each gallon is already taxed?
what do you mean "he should levy taxes on gasoline". we already
have gas taxes and they only go up.
\_ I am talking about raise it to $1 / gallon. Use these taxes
to fund roads, freeway, bridges.
\_ Seriously, dude. It's already higher than that. It already
funds roads, freeways and bridges.... Wanna do a little
research before deciding on public policy?
\_ he's just dumb. he also has bad grammar. "Chinese levies..."
\_ not if levies is a noun
\_ then "Chinese levies taxes" doesn't work. so you're
dumb too.
\_ bad grammar, but dumb? I beg differ. I am just making
too much sense here, because gasoline tax will encourage
people drive less, drive a smaller car, etc.
\_ How about if the US would just stop subsidizing so many
environmentally UNfriendly things?
\_ wow, ship all the democrats to china, they'd love these taxes.
\_ Why not send the Republicans--they'd love the oppression,
prison camps and corruption?
\_ We already ship all of our pollution to China, by proxy.
\_ Gasoline should be taxed to pay all the costs of roads, pollution
cleanup, etc. etc. A lot of car ownership and usage is
subsidized.
\_ That's a nice delusion tree-hugger. Keep smokin' whatever it
is you are smoking, it obviously makes you smarter than the
suits that run the world.
\_ Are you trying to bait foaming-at-the-mouth anti-car guy
into a rant?
\_ how much was the highway bill last year again? you don't
call it a subsidies?
\_ because without highways our economy and society would
mostly collapse. all government spending is a form of
subsidy for something. if you don't like subsidies
then let's cancel taxes and stop having a government.
\_ Yep. Without those billions spent on bridges to
nowhere in Alaska, the fucking planet would probably
stop spinning.
\_ Every bill has pork. Picking a single pork
project and painting the entire system with it
is intellectually dishonest and rhetorically
cheap. What's the point of posting one liner
snap shots?
\_ That may or may not be true, but it is hard to
argue with a straight face that car driving is
not subsidized.
\_ Of course it is. Who said it wasn't? -driver
\_ why highway? why not railroad tracks? light rails?
bike lane?
\_ Rails are already subsidised and have been for
150+ years. Bike? Nice for short single trips
for healthy people but we're not about to
restructure society so everyone lives in a village
or near quality public transit. Public transit
\_ Why aren't we? Do you think magic Jetson
style perpetual motion runs on air funny
cars are going to be sold by GM next year?
We should start preparing for a non
car centric lifestyle now or suffer
the serious consequences later.
has other issues such as inflexibility and one
event can bring 10s of thousand of people to a
halt such as the Oakland BART shut down the other
day. We need a variety of transit options and
quite frankly all of them have already been
subsidised. How many bikers ever paid for using
or creating a bike lane, for example?
\_ Would people please stop bitching about
subsidies for mass transit/biking? The
subsidies for automobiles dwarf any other
transit subsidies.
\_ I wasn't bitching. I'm saying *all*
transit is subsidised. Yes, some more
than others but it all is.
\_ URL? I want to see the amount of $$$
spent on highways outside of the $$$
collected by gas and automobile
taxes versus the amount spent on
mass transit.
\_ Actually a Carter-era tax idea was to raise taxes on gasoline $1-
$2 per gallon, and then rebate the same money back in the form
of lower payroll taxes (most Americans pay more in payroll taxes
than in income taxes). It doesn't raise taxes and still encourages
conservation.
\_ Don't "payroll taxes" _include_ income taxes?
\_ no.
\_ until they make up a reason to raise payroll taxes later then
you're stuck with both taxes which will continue rising.
\_ You mean like what Reagan did? Well the current climate
is to never raise taxes, cut them whenever possible and
have future generations & massive inflation deal with the
ensuing problems. |
| 5/20 |
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| tinyurl.com/k3922 -> www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/business/worldbusiness/23yuan.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin KEITH BRADSHER Published: March 23, 2006 HONG KONG, Thursday, March 23 The Chinese government announced plans on Wednesday to increase existing taxes and impose new ones on April 1 for everything from gas-guzzling vehicles to chopsticks in a move to rein in rising use of energy and timber and the widening gap between rich and poor. Skip to next paragraph Greg Baker/Associated Press China will assess a 5 percent tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in one of many conservation efforts. New or higher taxes will fall on vehicles with engines larger than two liters, disposable wooden chopsticks, planks for wood floors, luxury watches, golf clubs, golf balls and certain oil products. China's finance ministry disclosed the higher taxes Tuesday night in a statement that was reported Wednesday morning by the official New China News Agency. The statement offered another sign that some senior Chinese officials may be having second thoughts about the rapid growth of privately owned family vehicles, whose sales rose to 31 million last year from just 640,000 in 2000. "In recent years, car ownership in China has grown rapidly and fuel consumption has risen considerably, and this highlights the conflict between supply and demand of oil resources," the statement said. "At the same time, pollution caused by motor cars has become the main source of pollution in big and medium-size cities." The finance ministry is imposing a 5 percent tax on chopsticks and floor planks, citing a need to conserve timber. Environmentalists around the world have been warning that China's voracious demand for wood was contributing to the clear-cutting of many forests, especially in Southeast Asia. Plastic chopsticks, which can be washed and reused, will not be subject to the new tax. A new tax of 10 percent on yachts, golf clubs and golf balls, and a 20 percent tax on luxury watches, is squarely aimed at China's emerging elite of wealthy industrialists and well-connected Communist officials. China's yacht market is still in its infancy, as military restrictions on ocean traffic and commercial restrictions on river traffic have limited yachts to lakes although a few entrepreneurs have been able to get around the rules to cruise on the Yangtze River near Shanghai. Chinese officials have periodically assailed golf, especially when villages and farms are demolished with little compensation to make way for new golf courses. The biggest commercial effect of the new taxes is likely to fall on sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans. China is reducing its tax on vehicles with engines of 1 to 15 liters to 3 percent from 5 percent, while leaving the rate unchanged for slightly more powerful engines. The tax rate will rise to 20 percent, from 8 percent now, for vehicles with engines larger than four liters. The taxes are likely to affect foreign automakers, especially American manufacturers, more than Chinese companies, which tend to make models with smaller engines. The big question for automakers is how much of the tax to pass on to consumers, since the tax is collected from the manufacturers. With a week and a half remaining until the new tax takes effect, marketing executives scrambled on Wednesday to assess the impact and no automaker immediately raised prices. DaimlerChrysler spokesman, said the company offered fuel-efficient engines; many Mercedes sedans sold in China have considerably smaller engines than models sold in the United States. Chinese officials considered and rejected a tax system based on gas mileage instead of engine displacement. That approach would have benefited foreign automakers who possess better technology that permits them to squeeze more power out of the same size engine than purely Chinese manufacturers can. General Motors China welcomed the new taxes on Thursday but voiced a reservation: "While we believe the new measure will be more environmentally friendly and help lower energy consumption in China, we think it would be more reasonable to base the tax rate on the actual fuel consumption of a vehicle instead of the size of its engine displacement, which is a widely accepted practice worldwide." Yale Zhang, an analyst in the Shanghai office of CSM Worldwide, a big automotive consulting firm based in the Detroit suburbs, said that Chinese automakers had growing influence in policy debates and that the new rules might lead to a proliferation of vehicles with engines a hundredth of a liter below the thresholds for higher taxes. Chinese regulators have already imposed stringent fuel-economy regulations that take effect for all vehicles sold after July 1, and have said that they are considering a separate gas-guzzler tax for models that do not comply. The finance ministry's statement on the tax increases on April 1 made no mention of such a gas-guzzler tax, however, and finance ministry officials could not be reached for elaboration. Applying taxes on oil products but not collecting them while prices are high could set a precedent for how China handles taxes on gasoline and diesel. Chinese officials have said repeatedly that they would like to raise fuel taxes to encourage conservation, but do not want to act while world oil prices are close to record levels. On April 1, China will also lower its tax on motorcycles with engines under 250 cubic centimeters to 3 percent from 10 percent, while leaving the tax unchanged at 10 percent for motorcycles with larger engines. |